Wednesday night of last week through Monday morning of this week my son from IA, his wife, and two little daughters were here. It had been a while since they had been here, so it was wonderful having them here. There were a lot of different emotions that I felt while they were here, however. I felt moments of joy, some sadness, and some stress.

I felt joy the day we went down to our State Park near Lake Michigan. Our son from IA and our son that lives locally grilled hamburgers and brats, and we also enjoyed many other wonderful goodies. All our family was there except for our son from London and his family. My mother-in-law who has terminal cancer and my sister-in-law also were there. We enjoyed watching the grandkids play, had a great time of fellowship, and later a few of us took a walk on the trail.

Friday evening we enjoyed a walk along the harbor and a pizza supper in our local park. Saturday we enjoyed a home cooked breakfast buffet at my local son’s home and later a grilled supper. Sunday was church, playing games with my granddaughters, and other fellowship time together.

I enjoyed also having four of my granddaughters camping out in our basement doing their little “slumber party” thing each evening. It was such a happy thing for me that we could have them stay at our house. When we lived in the apartment we would not have been able to do that.

There was also the moment of joy mixed with some sadness when they left yesterday. The hugs from my granddaughters and son and his wife were so special. My oldest son from IA has never been a big hugger, but he gave me a hug in his own way and said, “I love you, Mom” when he left. Sunday night (the night before they left) he and his wife also put tons of pictures on the new digital picture frame they gave me.

As with all family gatherings there were also moments of stress. My family did do a lot of the cooking, but just having them in my home added to my responsibilities of caregiving made things a little stressful and busy at times. Sometimes I felt a little torn in different directions.

As to the sad parts it was sad knowing this was probably the last time my son and his family from IA will most likely see my mother-in-law alive on this earth. This was mixed with the joy of the time we could spend together on Thursday and also the time that just my son’s family spent alone with her at her home on Sunday afternoon for awhile.

My son who lives locally and who is very good hearted in so many ways also can be temperamental at times. He kind of blew up at one point on Friday night and said some uncalled-for, unkind things to me. That was really the only sad part besides the situation with my mother-in-law, but it did tend to cloud things a bit. I honestly still feel some of the hurt of those uncalled-for comments.

Of course, my husband was really fatigued yesterday after all the excitement of the week. He was very lethargic and slept away a lot of the day. I agonized over whether to cancel his in-home therapy session in the afternoon, but we did go through with it.

So the family is gone, but now I have my beautiful pictures to look at on my digital picture frame as a happy reminder of our time together and my children and grandchildren. Life can get back to normal what ever that is in the ever changing world of caregiving.

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